Rejection sucks! It’s not easy to heal from a heartache but a broken heart, once repaired with maturity and time, beats stronger and loves deeper than ever before. The first step in believing this fundamental truth is experiencing it firsthand. Don’t give up on love. Read the true story below by Teresa McIntosh-Hall and see if you can relate to how she heals from her broken heart.
I had almost forgotten the pain of young, unrequited love until just recently when my sixteen year old daughter turned our household upside down with tears, drama and depression brought on by a boy whose smile is warm and enchanting but whose heart is slightly cold to touch. I admit it…I think God was having a bad day when he invented young, romantic love. It’s like drinking from a tainted well…we instinctively thirst for intimacy and love but sooner or later…you’re going to get sick. Telling her “this too shall pass” or “ignore him and move on” sounds like Chinese to her teenage ears. Instead, she hears “the world has come to an end and you shall never love again.” Her sixteen-year-old heart feels a crushing wave of pain that most of us in our middle age years can now remember and relate to with fondness and appreciation. If it wasn’t for the men who broke our hearts…we would have never learned the deepest truth about love…a broken heart, once repaired with maturity and time, beats stronger and loves deeper than ever before. But the first step in believing this fundamental truth is experiencing it firsthand.
I was thinking back to the boys of summer…you know the ones I thought I truly loved. The memories can still weaken my knees and make me blush some twenty years later. For some lucky girls they can name only one true love and they will tell you they married him. I envy those girls. For some of us though…we drank from the tainted well a few too many times and we’ve grown a little skeptical about what cupid was trying to do when he shot an arrow in our ass. Some of us can still recall the sting all these years later.
There are often pivotal moments in our teenage life that painfully shape who we become. Or as our preacher used to say; “are you a carrot or an egg when placed in boiling water?” It’s those critical boiling moments that either soften your heart or harden it. One such moment for me was junior year in high school, age 16, standing next to my locker while my girlfriend Christy broke the news to me that good ole Roger Lafer didn’t want to date me (not his real name by the way, but close enough so I hope he reads this on my blog someday and shits his fat middle aged pants). Christy looked me straight in the eyes and spoke the truth; “Roger doesn’t want to go out with you again. He thinks you are flat chested and slow. I tried to tell him you just can’t hear.”
POW! BAM! SOB! SUCKER PUNCH ME HARD!
“He may be right about my boobs but Slow….like fucking retarded?” I replied.
“Yeah, I am afraid so. We all know you are not slow. He is a total dick.” said Christy.
As strange as this might sound, I can recall the details of that locker side conversation as if it happened just recently but in fact it happened more than 28 years ago. It was one of those critical boiling moments that I spoke about earlier. A defining moment in time when your teenage heart and spirit either hardens or softens. That particular flash in time, experiencing both rejection and insult in one quick blow, ended up defining how I immediately perceived myself but later in life that moment also subconsciously drove me to outperform and overachieve.
It’s not a coincidence that this once 16-year-old “deaf and dumb” girl, whose heart could not be hardened, earned a bachelor and masters degree and a nice paying job at the top of the management ladder, excelling both professionally and personally. It’s also not a coincidence that padded bras became a necessary addition to my wardrobe.
Ah, the ones who got away…I never properly thanked God like I should have, but I can now. “Thank you Jesus for making Roger believe I was slow and flat chested back in 1984. Because of him and a few other bad boys, my heart beats stronger and loves deeper than ever before. Amen.”
As for my daughter…well, I guess she has to learn the deepest truth about love on her own. I can’t take the pain away from her and I don’t want to because some of the best parts of our adult personality are forged from painful circumstances. The shy boy became a comedian. The ugly duckling became a model. The hoodlum became a winning football coach and the deaf girl, in the back row, whose heart skipped a beat when you walked into the room, became a writer.
@copyright By Teresa McIntosh-Hall
Teresa McIntosh-Hall is a writer, blogger, social worker and political activist who survived a broken heart.
Resources for a broken heart:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-science-of-heartbreak_b_9511498
Very nice and insightful, T. Very true, too! Good job.
Thank you Tim!
Thank you Tim. I appreciate your feedback.